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Tanya Lord, MPH, is a fourth year student in the CPHR program with an interest in Patient Safety research. She was recently awarded a Health Services Dissertation grant from the Agency Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). This grant will support her dissertation research evaluating the effectiveness of the Rapid Response System that was fully implemented at the University and Memorial hospitals, in January, 2009. Roger Luckmann, MPH, MD in Family Medicine and Community Health is her mentor and the director of the Rapid Response System. A Rapid Response System (RRS) is a hospital program that provides the means for bringing qualified clinicians immediately to the bedsides of patients outside of the intensive care unit (ICU) setting who are experiencing significant clinical decline, usually manifest by the occurrence of one or more “trigger” signs such as low blood pressure or increased heart or respiratory rate. The objective of an RRS is early identification of clinical decline with effective early intervention to prevent further decline, cardiac arrest and death. The 12 months prior to RRS implementation and the 24 months following will be evaluated for changes in floor to ICU transfers, cardiac arrest outside of the ICU and hospital wide mortality. Additionally a modified process evaluation of the RRS will be conducted.